“Francisca,” he said, in the same gravelly voice he used with the goats and the swine.
I set my spade down and shaded my eyes as I looked up. With the afternoon sun over his shoulders, I couldn’t see his face—only that he was already swaying. “Yes, sir?”
“Storm’s coming in fast, and the currents is swirling round Valparaíso wreck.” He said it Val-prizo. Not how Mama said it, the right way, like our Spanish forebears. “Get your diving trousers on and don’t make me wait, else you’ll be swimming out there, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
He leaned over and spat tobacco so close to me I could almost taste it. Then he turned down the beach trail, grunting with every step he took on his foot with the missing toes.
I tugged my gardening apron off and hurried home, eagerness and dread tumbling in my stomach. I loved diving wrecks more than anything, but it meant spending time alone with Sewel.
Pushing through the door, I stopped to breathe in the last traces of Mama’s scent—a mix of sweet coconut and the sour sweat that had come when she’d taken to bed for good. My gaze went to the empty mattress, then to the dirty pots stacked by the basin and the sand dusting the planks beneath my feet. I’d always taken pride in this house. It was made of salvaged ship’s timbers, puzzled together with pine logs I’d helped cut down myself. At night, with whisper of the surf drifting in, it felt like living inside a great conch shell. But since losing Mama, nothing felt the same.
Kneeling before the trunk, I found the trousers and shirt I used for diving and changed into them, leaving my jumper and sweaty shift where they fell. Then I sprinted to the beach, my stride long and smooth without petticoats slowing me.
As I came through the trees, I saw thick clouds bunching on the horizon and whispered a quick prayer they’d stay there. In West End, two things that never stayed away long enough were hurricanes and hunger.
Sewel had already gotten the wherry past the breakers. Two other boats bobbed out there as well—our usual wrecking crew. Also every inhabitant on our island. Jonah Baines and his boys were pressed together in their little red skiff, three heads of equal height gleaming like polished copper. Moses Wiggins and his daughter Mercy floated closer to shore, Mercy waving when she saw me.
I smiled and waved back as I broke the first waves with my feet. Then I dove, and all I could hear was the ocean’s singing, the bubbles and waves as they rose up and blended with my breaths. With every kick and stroke I felt a little stronger. By the time I reached the wherry, I’d shed some of my sadness and felt halfway to being me again.
I grabbed the gunwale to pull myself in.
Sewel’s hand came down on my wrist. “Molasses would’ve got here first, Francisca.”
“Yes, sir.”
He didn’t let go. I knew better than to meet his bleary eyes, so I kicked in place and stared at the red feather on his new round-brim hat. The very day Mama went in the ground, Sewel had sailed for Nassau, returning only that morning. While I’d poured my tears into her pillow, he’d gone hat shopping.
At last he let me go. I climbed aboard and checked that my shirt covered me in the right places, though there wasn’t much to cover. Then I squeezed the water from my braids.
Sewel turned to speak to Mr. Baines, making his voice loud enough so Moses Wiggins could hear as well. Moses and Mercy were runaways and Sewel never spoke to them direct. “Tide’s an iron hook today. Best we run past Memory Rock, then veer north.”
With that, the men got to raising the sails and setting a course, except Moses, who had no sail and had to row his way out there.
Soon as we got underway, Sewel unstoppered a bottle of rum and leaned back, resting his arm on the tiller. I could see the silvery letter M branded on the brawn of his thumb. It was Mercy who told me what that letter stood for—manslayer—but I knew what it meant long before I learned the word for it.
I turned fore and trailed my fingers through the water. With the waves rippling and my dark braid hanging over my shoulder, I could almost imagine it was Mama’s face staring back at me instead of mine. Fathoms below, an angelfish spooked and disappeared into a bed of whip seaweed. Over on the Baines boat, the boys starting singing songs about Captain Teach and the good days of pirating gone by, when earning your daily bread was as easy as taking it from someone else, while Sewel and Mr. Baines called back and forth about the war with the rebellious American colonies.
Wrecking was how we earned our daily bread. We helped ships that had run up on sandbars or reefs as they cruised through the Bahama Channel—sandbars and reefs we knew better than anyone. If the ship couldn’t be kedged back to deep water, we hauled away the cargo for a share. In rarer times, when the ship was a total loss and sank, we dove for its sunken spoils, sometimes uncovering them for years after the wreck itself.
I dove for sunken spoils. Sewel never did the diving because of his missing toes, he claimed, which made no sense to me. Fish swam, didn’t they?
Sewel had told me once how he’d lost them on a burning merchant ship when a fiery yard fell and smashed half his foot. He’d nearly been killed that day, he’d said, but God looked out for drunks, fools, and sailors. God must’ve loved Sewel fierce ’cause he was all three.
Like he was peering into my disloyal thoughts, Sewel stretched out his leg and ran his foot against my shin, the thick scars scratching me like bark.
I pulled away, my heart jumping in my chest.
Sewel shook his head at me. Then he tipped the bottle back and drank.
* * *
By the time we got to the Valparaíso, the empty bottle rattled round the bottom of the wherry and thunder rumbled in the distance. The tide was so high that only the tip of the old wreck’s mainmast stuck out, like a cross staked right in the sea.
“Less go, Francisca,” Sewel slurred. He tossed the anchor overboard and spat at the sea to bring us luck. “We en’t got much time.”
I checked the rope belting my trousers. The sea flashed like pewter, dull and dark. I always felt a little dizzy when I couldn’t see to the bottom, not knowing what awaited me down there.
“Get diving.” Sewel pulled off his hat and wiped his sweaty forehead. The rum had brought the blood into his eyes. “And best not disappoint. I en’t got a drop of patience today, understand?”
Anger rose inside me like smoke. “Yes, sir.”
Over on the Baines boat, Owen and Daniel Baines shoved each other and laughed as they dove in. Mercy and Moses were already in the water and their tiny boat ran up and down the swells empty. I sucked in a few breaths, readying my lungs, a feeling of strength and daring filling me.
“Sewel, sir?” I said, looking over my shoulder. “I was just wonderin’…you gonna have any patience tomorrow?” He lunged across the wherry to grab me, but I leapt into the air—and crashed into freedom.